Plato grew up in Athens, a city that once was nearly torn apart, as Plutarch wrote, by the “disparity between the rich and the poor.” It was saved by a heroic lawgiver, Solon, who canceled all the debts of the poor, to the great chagrin of the rich.
Thank you, Jack, for your response re: John Rawls. I was not referring to anything specific in Rawl's 'A Theory of Justice'. It was merely the fact that reflection on social justice is part of the intellectual and political ecosystem of the U.S and I cited Rawls as an example. I agree with most of what you had to say in response to my post. However, I would lean more towards the gradual reform idea in the Edmund Burke style. An electoral system that facilitates this a little better, it seems to me, is the PR (proportional representation) system, which has an ability to allow more voices a say. Green Parties in Europe would never have had an opportunity to push and implement an environmental agenda in government without it.
It's astonishing to me, from the vantage point of now, that I spent an entire year in college studying 'A Theory of Justice' by the American philosopher John Rawls. I'd love to see somebody take up the cause of recovering his ideas. They are American ones!
Just came across this after writing my previous response:
"Just six years ago, 69 percent of respondents to a Cato Institute poll agreed that billionaires “earned their wealth by creating value for others.” An only slightly smaller majority agreed with the statement “We are all better off when people get rich.”
It goes on to say that attitudes more recently are shifting, but it's so deeply engrained in the American character. Everybody wants to get rich; it's what gives our lives meaning and purpose. The Obamas are exemplars that make us most proud. See, if they can do it anyone can. Right?
Do you mean having us all start from his veil of ignorance thought experiment? Or have you something else Rawlsian in mind? I agree that that part of Rawls should be something every high school kid be at least familiar with.
Problem with veil of ignorance is that it requires people, especially the types who you'd think would be most open to it--American Liberal elites, everybody, for instance, at the Obama event--must have the intellectual and moral maturity to look at their own good luck as good luck. Most of them think they deserve everything that they have. The whole American meritocracy is built on that, and the entire meritocracy is complicit with or co-opted by the logic of the TCM. That underlying logic is never questioned.
I thought it was fitting that the Obama administration's education reform program was called "Race to the Top", which perfectly embodies that meritocratic mentality. The Bush Administration at least had the public relations savvy to call their equally meritocratic program No Child Left Behind. But where is everybody racing to? Does even Rawls have a good answer for that question?
The bottom line, for me anyway, is that we have to rebuild from scratch, and we can't do that until the old thing doesn't deliver anymore, even to the people who most benefit from it now. And that requires that the old thing crash or be in some other way completely de-legitimated. When it does, Rawls can be brought into the conversation about how we build something new.
Thank you, Jack, for your response re: John Rawls. I was not referring to anything specific in Rawl's 'A Theory of Justice'. It was merely the fact that reflection on social justice is part of the intellectual and political ecosystem of the U.S and I cited Rawls as an example. I agree with most of what you had to say in response to my post. However, I would lean more towards the gradual reform idea in the Edmund Burke style. An electoral system that facilitates this a little better, it seems to me, is the PR (proportional representation) system, which has an ability to allow more voices a say. Green Parties in Europe would never have had an opportunity to push and implement an environmental agenda in government without it.
It's astonishing to me, from the vantage point of now, that I spent an entire year in college studying 'A Theory of Justice' by the American philosopher John Rawls. I'd love to see somebody take up the cause of recovering his ideas. They are American ones!
Just came across this after writing my previous response:
"Just six years ago, 69 percent of respondents to a Cato Institute poll agreed that billionaires “earned their wealth by creating value for others.” An only slightly smaller majority agreed with the statement “We are all better off when people get rich.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/opinion/billionaires-politics-money.html
It goes on to say that attitudes more recently are shifting, but it's so deeply engrained in the American character. Everybody wants to get rich; it's what gives our lives meaning and purpose. The Obamas are exemplars that make us most proud. See, if they can do it anyone can. Right?
Do you mean having us all start from his veil of ignorance thought experiment? Or have you something else Rawlsian in mind? I agree that that part of Rawls should be something every high school kid be at least familiar with.
Problem with veil of ignorance is that it requires people, especially the types who you'd think would be most open to it--American Liberal elites, everybody, for instance, at the Obama event--must have the intellectual and moral maturity to look at their own good luck as good luck. Most of them think they deserve everything that they have. The whole American meritocracy is built on that, and the entire meritocracy is complicit with or co-opted by the logic of the TCM. That underlying logic is never questioned.
I thought it was fitting that the Obama administration's education reform program was called "Race to the Top", which perfectly embodies that meritocratic mentality. The Bush Administration at least had the public relations savvy to call their equally meritocratic program No Child Left Behind. But where is everybody racing to? Does even Rawls have a good answer for that question?
The bottom line, for me anyway, is that we have to rebuild from scratch, and we can't do that until the old thing doesn't deliver anymore, even to the people who most benefit from it now. And that requires that the old thing crash or be in some other way completely de-legitimated. When it does, Rawls can be brought into the conversation about how we build something new.